If Kentucky voters approve a constitutional amendment allowing expanded casino gambling, the employer of state Sen. R.J. Palmer, D-Winchester, a leading co-sponsor of the bill could benefit financially.
Palmer works as a banker at Ross, Sinclaire and Associates, an investment banking, securities brokerage and asset management firm serving Kentucky and seven other states, according to its website. The company sells bonds for local government projects.
Murray Sinclaire, president and CEO of the firm, co-owns the Thunder Ridge Racing & Entertainment Complex, a harness track in Prestonsburg. If the bill is approved, the track could apply for a casino license.
In 2009, Palmer abstained from voting on a bill that would have expanded gambling to race tracks, citing a conflict of interest after receiving advice from the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission, he said. But this time, he said, is different.
“Previously when the House had passed the gaming legislation, they had set forth in that legislation licenses, they had defined who would have those licenses and what they would pay for those licenses,” Palmer said. “There were varied licensees in that bill. Thunder Ridge had a lower license fee than the rest of the race tracks.”
This time, Palmer is sponsoring a bill, SB 151, calling for a ballot measure allowing voters to decide the casino gambling issue in November.
If approved by voters, five Kentucky horsetracks and two outside locations would be authorized to allow casino gambling, but it does not specify which tracks.
When the topic came back up this time, Palmer said, he went back to the ethics commission and told them about the proposal.
“The ethics commission got back to me and told me ‘If that is what the proposal is, you have no conflict of interest,’” Palmer said. “So the short answer is I guess I did what’s required of me, and that is to ask our ethics commission for their guidance on what I should do.”
Palmer said apart from that, he does not work for Thunder Ridge Racing and has no interest in the track.
“That’s an outside business interest of the owner of the firm that I work for,” he said.
Contact Katie Perkowski at kperkowski@winchestersun.com or follow her on Twitter, @TheSunKatie.
